I've placed my orders for the components of my new system, among which there are Asus A8V Deluxe and Athlon64 3500+ 90nm. Now I got the mail that the MB is already on the way to me, not sure about the CPU yet.

But yesterday I read somewhere that the A8V board only supports Winchester CPU with BIOS version >=1007 Well, if I happen to get a board with an older bios, is there any other way around than finding someone to lend me a 939 NewCastle CPU (which is highly improbable!!) to update my bios?!

If not, I'd be pretty much screwed! It would not be easy to get help from the shop where I bought the MB because they are in Germany and I'm in Austria. Well, in the worst case I'll have to take it to a hardware store and ask (and probably pay) them to help me out, really sucks!

But yesterday I read somewhere that the A8V board only supports Winchester CPU with BIOS version >=1007

That's what the Asus CPU compatibility information on the website says. But it also says simply:
"However, if your BIOS version is smaller than the version listed above, then you will need to select and download the latest BIOS to update your system."
It doesn't say that you are not able to update when running the chip with an earlier bios. I would ask Asus support for clarification. I'd like to know the answer myself. I suspect that it's not an issue.

Thanks a bunch for this helpful information!!!!
I think my stuff is arriving tomorrow and since I did order TWO 512MB RAM modules, I'd probably never think of using only one and maybe would have to go through the hard way:D
I'll post my result when it's done, thank you guys once more, you are being most helpful!!!

Today all my stuffs have arrived, and I followed the exact procedure (1 RAM stick in B1 to update bios etc.) and it worked like a charm!
But how do I actually know that my CPU is a Winchester?! Nowhere on the package of the CPU is it labeled one way or another:(

I'm sitting here at this very moment fuming about ASUS customer support.
TERRIBLE!

Iv'e a A8V Deluxe with an AMD 3500+ and winchester chip set.
Brand new and the damn thing won't boot.
It's my first build so I was VERY careful.
If removing a set of DIMM's makes it boot I'm really going to be pissed.

eidolon, have you updated your A8V bios to 1007? As I understand, booting with single RAM stick with 1006 is just a walk-around, it does not necessarily solve the problem with A8V and Winchester.
I did exactly as gabeyd suggested - first use 1 stick to boot to update my bios, then put 2 sticks in, full power, install windows etc., and everything worked without a glitch.
But now I even regret that I didn't at least "try" to boot with 2 sticks to see if it really would fail, now I'm not even sure I actually HAVE a Winchester:-( well...

Frustrating to the point that've I've called my lawyer.
I'm considering joining the ranks of sue happy Americans.
A class action suit might be the ticket. The more and more I peruse the web the more and more issues ASUS seems to be having with their socket 939 boards. They need to take the high road and have a recall. There is no acceptable reason that a consumer should have to put up with this kind of grief.

Day three, four phone calls to ASUS. Never put through to tech support and the PROMISED return call has yet to occur.

Time for an update.
I've settled down.
My new system in the Fai Kong case is up and running.

When you finally do get to speak with the techs at ASUS they are friendly and helpful.
The Cosair (DDR maker) people returned my call within 2 hours. Thanks!
Microsoft really put in an effort but in the end it all came down to ASUS having issues.
ASUS tried to blame Cosair for having clocking issues on their chips. But when I was finally (whew) able to flash the bios, the bios changes Cosair recommended be made were erased and default values were loaded. (No I was to dumb to keep a written record)
Windows loaded up without issue.

ASUS!!! ON THE VERY FRONT OF YOUR WEB PAGE admit there are problems with the 1006 BIOS. Make sure your resellers are aware of this fact and what the corrective actions are.

All I know is that I ordered an AMD 3500+ chip. It shouldn't matter whether it's New Castle or Winchester. If it does SAY SO!

Thankfully I'm not alone in having difficulties with the ASUS A8V Deluxe.

um, consumer-grade motherboards cost like $150 max, the margins on them have to be razor-thin even before considering the effort that goes into designing and supporting them (as in bios revisions, the important part). you get what you pay for.

the great thing about stuff like this is that the only people that even know what a motherboard looks like are generally competent, and google will instantly find the answer. OTOH you called MS for help, that's $50 even though there's certainly nothing they can do about it, and you still think Asus' support sucks?

Asus's support sucks because they simply don't put you through to where you want to be, assuming they don't cut you off.
And they NEVER answer emails.

It's another case of a manufacturer where everything is fine until there's a problem. Thankfully with Asus the quality is usually such that there isn't one.
HOWEVER:
I would never ever EVER buy a VIA chipset from anyone, even Asus. My current board is a VIA based Asus A7V333 and it's had no end of problems with memory (I can't even get it stable at its full speed, so it's underclocked at PC2200 speeds when it's PC2700), USB2 (unplugging devices has a depressing tendency to BSOD the machine, and using certain combinations of devices in certain ports will lock it up if you even try to USE one of them), it really HATES certain PCI cards, and I had no end of trouble even getting UT2K3 running on it initially which is now a well documented and much complained about flaw with VIA's 4in1 AGP driver.
And I'm running XPSP2, latest VIA drivers and latest BIOS and gave up reinstalling things from scratch after about 20 attempts when it became clear that this was simply a hardware problem, and that VIA's north and southbridge chips were to blame.
All in all it's a terrible chipset, and I could never recommend VIA to anyone - I don't want that sort of thing on my concience. They're cheap, and they're cheap for a reason: shoddy drivers, terrible firmware, and crap chips.

Luckily for him my brother checked with me before building his system about a year ago - he was going to go for a VIA based board. I put him onto one of the nForce3 based Asus boards and I've heard nothing but praise for it since.
Consequently I'm waiting for a nForce4 based board from either Abit or Asus before I get my Winchester system.

yeah, didn't notice that in the original post either, only SiS or nVidia for me. kinda wary of VIA ever since their legal issues with Intel, and all the drivers and patches and crap. shouldn't take any software changes just to make a motherboard work properly unless you're using its onboard sound or video...

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